No jurors selected yet for Neville murder retrial
After a full day of the jury selection process, not one juror has yet been chosen to hear the murder retrial of Steven Neville.
About 350 people spent Monday at Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in St. John’s, having been summoned for possible jury duty.
The 12 jurors and two alternates will be chosen by way of a long and complicated challenge for cause procedure; it’s used, usually by request of the defence, in cases that have seen extensive media coverage. Potential jurors will be asked a series of questions (that are banned from publication) to reveal any biases they might hold that would undermine their ability to be impartial.
Once selected, the jurors then become “triers,” having a say in deciding whether or not to accept the subsequent potential jury members.
The process will likely take several days. Justice Robert Stack, who will preside over the trial, greeted the potential jurors by acknowledging the challenges that are sometimes involved in being summoned for the selection process, and thanking the sheriff’s officers for their handling of the large crowd.
Neville, 27, is charged with the murder of Doug Flynn and attempted murder of Ryan Dwyer during an altercation on Carlisle Drive in Paradise in October 2010. Flynn was fatally stabbed in the head.
In addition to the attempted murder charge, Neville was originally charged with first-degree murder, and pleaded not guilty. A jury found him guilty of the lesser charge of seconddegree murder after a trial in St. John’s in 2013, but the conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada two years later. That court found there were problems with the trial judge’s instructions to the jury, and ordered a new trial for Neville.
The dates for the new trial have been postponed a number of times since then, but things are set to get underway once the new jury is chosen. Ten weeks have been set aside for Neville’s new trial.
Neville, who is not in custody, is represented this time around by lawyers Bob Buckingham and Robert Hoskins. The prosecutors are Jessica Gallant and Jason House.